The Bread Whisperer
by PenelopeWeaving
Summary: She was watching it again. It was the most bizarre thing she could ever imagine, but here she was, addicted to watching this strange YouTube channel that showed a man's hands kneading dough. Written for Round 4 Day 6 of Prompts in Panem (Sin-Sloth)


Katniss pulled up into their driveway – her driveway, she realized, as her heart squeezed and her throat tightened painfully. She cut the ignition and laid her head on the steering wheel for awhile.

The sound of Lady bleating in the back got her moving again. She got out, unlocked the kitchen door, and walked into their house.

Her house.

She didn't look around. She didn't want to see anything. Instead, she kicked off the black heels that had cramped her little toe all day. Pulling her black dress over her head and dropping it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, she walked to her bedroom, shut the door, and buried herself under the covers.

She had no plans to move.

* * *

Over the next several days, she moved as little as possible. She shoved food into Lady's pen and milked her as quickly as she could before trudging back inside. _Damn goat_. How was she supposed to deal with this presence in her life? She needed to get rid of her.

She ate crackers occasionally. She had an apple that had turned mealy. She got up to go to the bathroom. At first, she would stare into the mirror for long periods of time until her back cramped from straining over the sink to see. Once she returned to her bed without remembering to actually use the bathroom.

The next time she had to get up, she stripped the pillowcase off her pillow and tucked it into the top of the medicine cabinet so that it would cover the mirror.

That was better.

And then she went back to bed.

* * *

"You here, sweetheart?"

The gravelly voice invaded her mind. She wasn't actually asleep, but she wasn't really awake, either. She stayed still, sure the voice would disappear if she let it. She drifted.

When she woke some time later, she could hear something new. Birds. She twisted her head around and realized her bedroom window was slightly open, letting in the cool air of early spring.

She stared at it dumbly for a moment before sitting up fully in bed. After a few minutes more, she pulled herself from the bed and made her way into the hall. Her legs felt heavy, and her back was tight. She moved her head from side to side, feeling the tendons stretch painfully.

"You finally pull yourself outta bed?"

The voice was back. She felt her face tighten, and she turned on her heel towards the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against the door, trying to figure out what to do. She didn't want to see him. She knew why he was here.

She fleetingly wondered what day it was, how many days had passed.

The voice penetrated her mind again, this time from the other side of the door. "Katniss," he said, his voice unusually gentle. "Come on out so we can talk."

She didn't respond. She breathed deeply but remained propped against the door. She was suddenly, overwhelmingly tired. She wasn't up to talking with her Uncle Haymitch. She wasn't ready to face it all. Her legs buckled underneath her, and she slid down the door to the floor. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift again.

* * *

She awoke this time to a sharp pain in her tailbone, the result of sleeping in her tucked position on the tile floor. Her head had fallen to her shoulder, and now her neck hurt even more than before.

She needed to go back to bed.

Stretching out her legs, and grimacing as her knees popped, she rolled to her side and gingerly pushed herself up into a crouching position before standing upright. She fumbled for the doorknob and pulled the door open – only to be faced with her uncle. He'd pulled a kitchen chair into the hallway and had waited for her to emerge.

She stopped as he eyed her and she stared back. Finally, he stood and pulled her towards him. Draping his arm around her shoulders, Haymitch led her into the kitchen where he gently pushed her down into a chair before sitting opposite her.

A stack of papers took up most of the space between them.

"I'm not going to ask how you're doing," he began. "It's obvious."

At that, she stood up sharply, her chair scraping across the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, fatigue and her lack of sustenance caught up with her at that moment. A wave of black studded with white spots flushed her sight, and she felt herself sway. Her legs buckled again, and she sat down hard in her chair.

Waiting to regain her sight, Katniss clutched the edge of the table. A moment later, a cool glass brushed her fingertips. She reached for it and gulped the water Haymitch had put in front of her.

"Katniss," he said, "I know you don't want to face this, but we have to. I can't go forward with these papers until we talk and you sign."

Her vision was clearing, and she looked at him closely for the first time. _His face is drawn_, she thought. She wasn't sure she'd ever known what that phrase actually meant, but looking at Haymitch now, in the waning light of her kitchen, she understood. There were shadows under his eyes and wrinkles around his mouth. His hair fell limply across his forehead, and several days' worth of stubble littered his chin and the space under his nose.

_His facial hair would never grow in evenly_, she thought, and her brain registered the sporadic randomness of the thoughts that were invading her consciousness.

"Your parents left everything they had to you and Prim, so of course, in this circumstance, it all goes to you." He swallowed. "Once you sign, I can have the money transferred into your account."

She saw him watching her, trying to read her eyes. She closed them.

"You've got enough to cover you for awhile as you get back on your feet, figure out what you want to do."

"I don't want to go back to school," she said. She hadn't spoken in days – weeks? – and she realized her voice sounded frail. She swallowed. "Just . . . not yet."

He was nodding at her. "That's fine. You've got time to figure out what comes next."

Next? The only thing she could think of next was her bed. She picked up the pen on the table, and Haymitch guided her to each clause, each blank to initial or sign. Her eyes blurred. She didn't want to read the words. Going through page after page as he talked about each detail of the will in front of her, she thought of the open window in her room and the birds outside and the cool air coming in and the down comforter waiting and finally she was signing the last page and she was getting up and moving away, back to her room, back to her bed, to sleep.

When she went out the next morning to take care of Lady, the goat was gone. _Good riddance_, she thought. Haymitch could easily take care of it along with those geese. One less thing to worry about.

* * *

After several more days in bed, Katniss began to read. She combed her shelves for her favorite titles, rereading and escaping to the familiarity of stories. She basked in the comfort they brought, and she figured she could stand being awake if she could lose herself this way.

After a few more days, however, she grew increasingly restless. She wandered the house, looking out windows. She opened the refrigerator and then closed it again, quickly. Something had gone bad.

She stayed away from Prim's and her parents' rooms. She avoided the living room, with the wall of family pictures. She looked out the sliding glass door to the woods outside.

Finally, she noticed the old laptop in the nook off the kitchen. She stared at it for just a moment before unplugging it and hauling it back to her room. Scrunching back down under the covers, she laid the laptop on her stomach and began to browse.

She'd never been a huge Internet person. She knew her peers had always thought she was slightly ridiculous because of it. The truth was, she normally didn't like to sit still. She'd never had her own computer, and she'd not had much interest in sitting at the family desk except for when she was writing papers and had no choice.

But she found herself on YouTube, and before she knew it, several hours had passed.

And then several days had passed.

While she was browsing one night, she chanced upon a kind of cooking channel called "The Bread Whisperer." The quality seemed more professional than most of the homemade videos she'd seen, but something about it told her it was homemade. The camera focused on a countertop and followed the cook's hands as he prepared what seemed to be a batch of shortbread. It was somewhat hypnotic, watching his hands lightly knead the dough before rolling it into a thick block. He spoke in a low, lilting voice, explaining the techniques he was using and giving alternate instructions to make sliced cookies. When the video came to an end, she scrolled through the archive on the channel, choosing an episode where he made a marbled pumpernickel loaf. Again, she watched his hands as they worked the dough, deftly turning and massaging it before now grinding the heel of his hand into it in a firm, steady rhythm.

She watched that episode a second time.

After that, she recognized that she was hungry, the realization gnawing at her stomach for the first time in days. She dragged herself out of bed and headed for the kitchen.

* * *

She was watching it again.

It was the most bizarre thing she could ever imagine, but here she was, addicted to watching this strange YouTube channel that showed a man's hands kneading dough. Or scooping cookies. Or frosting a cake, the spreading knife making quick flicks to replicate the waves of the sea.

It didn't take her long to figure out that "The Bread Whisperer" updated on Monday and Thursday mornings. Now she found herself waking early those days, pulling the laptop towards her before her eyes were even fully open, anxious to see if the channel had updated yet. (Okay. If she was being honest with herself, there were occasions when she woke in the middle of the night, rolled over, and checked to see if it had updated early. But it WASN'T because she was obsessed. The thought was absurd. She was just . . . curious.)

And it wasn't just his hands that fascinated her. The camera never strayed from a shot of his hands and forearms, but those forearms moved in ways she'd never considered. She had re-watched countless times the episode when he kneaded the heavy 9-grain dough with cranberries and sunflower seeds. The veins on his wrists protruded and his tendons popped and she couldn't pull her eyes away.

But what really captivated her was his voice.

Having spent all of her life living in various regions of the South, she felt pretty strongly that she could pin his accent to North Carolina. And if she were pressed, she would say the North Carolina mountains.

She liked to think that he lived near her. She knew she was being silly. But something about that _voice_ just did things to her. It was comforting, and it resounded in her mind even after she'd stopped watching.

When she finally ventured out to the grocery store, she found herself buying stick butter and searching to make sure she bought organic, unsalted – after he'd insisted his viewers use it during the episode when he made croissants. And when she purchased flour, she made sure she found an unbleached variety. (She had no plans for using the flour, but when she noticed the flour in the pantry was a cheap store brand, she threw it out.)

Now that she had something to look forward to on Mondays and Thursdays, she found herself even more restless on the other days of the week. She wasn't used to such a sedentary life, and she found herself longing for movement. She couldn't face seeing anyone, didn't want to see the looks of concern or answer their questions. But she needed to get out.

So she went to the woods. It was spring and the trees were in full bloom. She didn't do any of her usual activities – bouldering or climbing trees or anything. She just walked.

When she returned to the house, she was hungry. She rooted around in her mother's recipes until she found the one for homemade pancakes that her mother had copied from her grandmother. The handwriting on the card was small and precise, a script she'd seen every day of her life and never thought twice about before this moment. The tears were instantaneous, filling her eyes and dripping down her face.

She returned to the counter and then got out her unbleached flour and her organic butter and made the lumpiest pancakes she'd ever eaten in her life. And for the first time in weeks, she felt full.

* * *

What she began to refer to as "the cheese bun episode" began with a close-up on a package of cheese – a small bundle wrapped in what looked like butcher paper with _The Looking Glass Creamery_ printed on it. The man began talking about this small, artisanal producer of cheese located just south of Asheville, North Carolina. Her eyes widened, and she pulled the screen closer to her. He was talking about the goat cheese he was using and the importance of choosing a creamery that could guarantee a completely organic process. Then he ran down a list of other suitable cheeses to use for the recipe. He talked about texture and viscosity, the nuttiness of one compared to the bite of another. Just listening to his voice say _Gruyère_ and _Pont l'Évêque_ made her want to burrow deeper in her bed.

Soon, however, he was making a bread recipe and kneading and working the dough. She watched as he cut off smaller mounds to manipulate.

Too soon, the episode was over. She hit the refresh button so she could watch it again.

* * *

Throughout the rest of the day and into the next, an idea began to prick at the back of her mind. By Tuesday afternoon, she was on Haymitch's front step.

He opened the door and couldn't hide the surprise on his face. "Well, you're looking a helluva lot better than the last time I saw you. "

"Hey," she said, pushing past him. "How's Lady?"

He followed her through the house and out the back door.

She was surprised by the cleanliness of Lady's pen. The straw was neat, and there was plenty of room for her to graze. As she approached the goat, her breath caught in her throat as she remembered the care and time her sister had put into caring for it. Prim had always loved animals, and she'd planned to be a veterinarian one day. Each year she saw to Lady's breeding and then sold the kids when they were weaned. She made sure the goat was happy and comfortable, and she'd kept their family in a good supply of goat's milk for at least six months out of every year.

Standing now looking at the beast her sister had loved so much, she felt ashamed that she'd been so careless with Lady. But she could change that now.

She turned to Haymitch and said, "Thank you, Haymitch, for watching over her, but I think I'm ready to bring her home now."

* * *

She stopped in the library the next day and checked out a book on raising dairy goats. It was her first outing when she would have to see someone who knew her. Mags had been the librarian of the small county branch for many years, and she had always been around when Katniss had brought her sister to read while she did research for a paper or did other school work. She'd watched them grow up, essentially, so Katniss knew that going into the library would force her to deal with a situation she'd been avoiding.

Walking in, she saw Mags at the counter busy with another patron, so Katniss found an empty computer and began to search for the book she knew her sister had used when they first got Lady. If she was going to be the one taking care of the goat, she figured she'd need to find out how best to do it.

It didn't take her long to locate the book, and so with a deep breath, she made her way up to the counter.

"Hey Mags," she said, controlling the tremble in her voice.

Mags eyed her for a moment before replying. "Katniss," she said nodding. "It's good to see you. I've been wondering about you. How you were."

Katniss swallowed. "I'm okay," she said. "You know."

"Yeah, I know." Mags picked up the book Katniss had placed on the counter. "Mmmhmm," she said. "I guess you're in charge of Lady, now." Katniss was surprised Mags knew about it, but Mags chuckled at the look on her face. "Prim wasn't like you. She liked to talk about what she was doing. I heard all about it when she was first getting started."

Tears filled Katniss' eyes as she looked into the kind woman's face. One heavy drop stole down her cheek before she could wipe it away.

Mags came out from around the counter and handed her the book. Then the older woman embraced Katniss, holding her tightly in her arms and smoothing her hair. "I know it's hard. But come back here soon so I can see you. It'll help to talk."

Katniss straightened up as Mags took a step back. She nodded at Mags for a moment before swallowing painfully. "Thanks," she croaked. "I'll see you."

By the time Katniss made it outside, she couldn't hold it in anymore. She sat in her car and wept.

* * *

The pen and shed in the backyard where they'd always kept Lady was in pretty good shape. Some of the boards of the shed needed a few new nails, but otherwise, it had weathered well enough the neglect of the last few months. She spent time clearing out the old hay and bringing in new.

Next, she paid a visit to the farm where she knew Prim had bought hay in the past.

Here, she hit her first road block. She had no idea there were so many types of hay, and different hay for different times in the breeding cycle. Between what the owner knew Prim had bought before and what Katniss could tell him about Lady, she came home with what she hoped would be the right variety.

Finally, she felt like Lady's accommodations were better than adequate. She had continued milking the goat each day, but she now felt ready to explore the world of cheese making. _Chèvre_, the man had called it, and the memory of the word in his mouth made the hair on her neck stand up.

Googling was surprisingly productive. She found a website about making goat cheese that promised it was "almost as easy as making a pot of tea." _Sweet_. She could do this.

* * *

Except it wasn't. Katniss followed the directions of the recipe, but she ended up with soup instead of a nice, creamy cheese. She checked the grain of the cheese cloth she'd bought, but she thought it was fine. She decided to try another recipe, but she soon found out that all the recipes were mostly the same.

Each time she opened the cheese cloth after letting it drain the appropriate amount of time, what she found resembled a lumpy syrup. She tasted it, and the flavor seemed okay, but honestly, she wasn't sure if it was safe to eat. She threw it out and resolved to try again.

For several days, she kept trying but finally had to give up. There was clearly something wrong. She cast about the house, pacing idly, bored and frustrated and unsure what to do.

A few nights later, after eating a bowl of cereal, she crashed on the den sofa to surf for awhile. She'd moved the laptop in there when summer had finally grown hot. The air circulation was better in the den, and the overhead fan helped compensate for the heat of the computer in her lap.

Sitting down, she turned to YouTube and did what she always did these days. She found to her favorite cooking channel, and this time decided to re-watch the cheese bun episode. As the show started and the camera focused in on the label of the cheese, she realized what she could do. She paused the video and moved to a new tab so she could Google The Looking Glass Creamery. It was in Fairview, only about thirty minutes from her home. The web page showed a shop and a farm and included a customer service email address as well as a physical address.

She thought for a moment. Her question wasn't really about customer service. But perhaps they would help her anyway? She sent an email, explaining who she was and what she was trying to do and what was happening. _"I'm not a company trying to take away your business. I live in a house in Hendersonville. This goat has been a family pet for a long time, and I thought I'd try to make this cheese. But I can't figure out why it's not working. Do you think you could help?"_

She hit send without much hope. It was worth a try.

* * *

The next day was Thursday, and as usual, she started her morning with "The Bread Whisperer." Today he was making cinnamon rolls, and her mouth watered as she saw the final product. On rare occasions, the man sampled his wares like he did today, pulling a piece of dough off of one of the steamy rolls. It disappeared off camera, but she could hear him blowing on the bite to cool it. "Mmm," he said, and Katniss' pulse stuttered as she heard his moan of appreciation. She rewound it several times before heading off to take a shower.

After lunch, she saw she had an email – pmellark . She couldn't believe it. Someone had answered, and it was a different name than the customer service person she'd initially emailed. This seemed like a good sign.

_"Dear Katniss,_

_Thanks for your email. Reading about your problems, my first guess is that your goat is probably in her late-season lactation supply. You could try to let the curds ripen for longer. However, it could be something else – her diet, the hay or grass, or there may be an illness. I wouldn't normally offer this, but I'm making a delivery in Hendersonville the day after tomorrow. If you want, I could stop by and look at Lady and your pen._

_Let me know,_

_Peeta Mellark"_

Katniss read the email with growing excitement. She couldn't believe her luck. She figured he must be the owner of the farm and probably had been in charge of the goats for years. Surely he could figure out what was wrong. She sent back a quick email thanking him and giving her address.

* * *

She spent the next day making a new batch of cheese. She wanted to be able to show him what was happening. She split the batch in two, one that she would let sit for the prescribed amount of time and another she would let ripen for longer, just to see if it made any difference.

On Saturday morning, she got up and cleaned the house. She couldn't remember the last time she'd vacuumed, and she assumed he would come inside. By late morning, the heat had built and the small house was warmer than usual. Sweaty from cleaning, she showered, had lunch, and then began to watch for Mr. Mellark. His emailed reply had said he'd come by around one, and at exactly one o'clock, a truck pulled into her driveway.

She walked out into the carport to meet him and was shocked to see a young man get out of the cab. He looked like he was about her age. His wavy blond hair was windblown and his eyes seemed to smile at her as much as his mouth.

"Mr. Mellark?" she said.

"Please, call me Peeta," he said, extending his hand. All at once, her heart was racing, and she felt sweaty and faint as she tried to catch her breath. "You must be Katniss? It's an unusual name. Most people don't know about the Katniss onion, but I've always loved its delicate flavor."

She closed her eyes to listen, even though it wasn't necessary. She'd know that voice anywhere. He seemed to notice as her hand fell limply into his. "Are you okay, ma'am?" he said gently.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she asked breathlessly, "Are you by chance The Bread Whisperer?"

* * *

PIP is one of the best things about this fandom, so thanks to Jessa (Miss Honeywell/PeetasPenis) for putting in the time and effort once again. Thanks, too, to BohemianRider for beta-ing, encouraging, and coming up with the title.


End file.
